A walk around the perimeter of the Olympic site on Saturday revealed the enormous changes that have taken place in East London in preparation for the 2012 Games. It also revealed the unwelcome actions of security personnel employed by G4S on behalf of the London Olmpics.

There were four photo journalists and a video journalist in our group that attempted the walk. Halfway on the journey, near the vehicle entrance to Westfield, where the footpath and cycle suddenly ends without any indication of where one should safely traverse the roads, a security guard began shouting at us as we tried to find a safe way around the site....read more

Friday, April 20, 2012

In one Brighton tanning salon, the growing use of biometric technology has taken an even more ridiculous step.

As reported by the Brighton Argus, the system is apparently designed to stop people tanning more than once in 24 hours (because obviously the only way to stop that is to fingerprint all your customers). The fingerprint scanners are now in place, with the only way of opting-out to write a letter to the company’s head office.

This is a tanning shop, not a maximum security spy base. It is an absurd use of technology that is intended to track people’s behaviour.

While useful from a security point, it is largely irrelevant whether you can re-make a fingerprint image from the initial scan. The scheme, like many others using biometrics, has nothing to do with security and everything to do with collecting more data about us – and then accurately matching that data to our identity.

With schools, hospitals and businesses turning more and more to biometric technologies as a way of recording what people are doing, often under the guise of security or convinience, Big Brother Watch will continue to highlight the real intention behind these schemes and the serious privacy issues these technologies entail.

A bill already passed by the Senate and set to be rubber stamped by the House would make it mandatory for all new cars in the United States to be fitted with black box data recorders from 2015 onwards.

Section 31406 of Senate Bill 1813 (known as MAP-21), calls for “Mandatory Event Data Recorders” to be installed in all new automobiles and legislates for civil penalties to be imposed against individuals for failing to do so.

“Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part,” states the bill.

Although the text of legislation states that such data would remain the property of the owner of the vehicle, the government would have the power to access it in a number of circumstances, including by court order, if the owner consents to make it available, and pursuant to an investigation or inspection conducted by the Secretary of Transportation.

Given the innumerable examples of both government and industry illegally using supposedly privacy-protected information to spy on individuals, this represents the slippery slope to total Big Brother surveillance of every American’s transport habits and location data.

The legislation, which has been given the Orwellian title ‘Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act’, sailed through the Senate after being heavily promoted by Democrats Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer and is also expected to pass the Republican-controlled House.

Given the fact that the same bill also includes a controversial provision that would empower the IRS to revoke passports of citizens merely accused of owing over $50,000 in back taxes, stripping them of their mobility rights, could the mandatory black boxes or a similar technology be used for the same purpose?...read more

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Facebook supports a bill that would give them immunity from prosecution for giving users data to government

Facebook has issued a statement explained why it is supporting the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) HR 3523, which is currently being considered by Congress.CISPA would set up a mechanism for the government's security services to share information on new threats with private companies and utilities. In return, those companies can share data on their users with the government if requested, and the bill ensures they are bulletproof from legal fallout if people complain. Data sharing is voluntary and some data can be stripped of identifying features.

But internet rights campaigners are concerned that the loose language of the legislation will leave it open to be used in a much wider context than national online security. Dan Auerbach, staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told The Register that the provisions of the bill could be stretched to include sharing data for crimes like piracy.

"The biggest problem with the bill is that it's too vague," he explained. "The language in it now is broad enough that it could be used to allow, or compel companies, to do copyright enforcement."

He explained that while the information exchange was voluntary, the government is adept at encouraging companies to play ball. Access to lucrative federal contracts could be offered to those who are willing to cooperate and compliance might be written into such contracts. It's a pattern of behavior that's been noted before, he said.

The bill will be debated in the US House of Representatives this month, and has attracted over 100 co-sponsors. There's also an impressive list of technology companies lining up to support CISPA, including Microsoft, Intel, EMC, Oracle and Facebook. Facebook is the only company to respond to El Reg's requests for comment, and then it stuck to a general statement.

"HR 3523 would impose no new obligations on us to share data with anyone – and ensures that if we do share data about specific cyber threats, we are able to continue to safeguard our users’ private information, just as we do today,' said Facebook's Joel Kaplan, vice president of US public policy in a statement on the site.

"We recognize that a number of privacy and civil liberties groups have raised concerns about the bill. The concern is that companies will share sensitive personal information with the government in the name of protecting cybersecurity. Facebook has no intention of doing this and it is unrelated to the things we liked about HR 3523 in the first place."

Facebook's support was seen as important in persuading legislators to drop the proposed SOPA and PIPA laws, along with the market and lobbying muscle of Google. The Chocolate Factory isn't listed as a supporter of the legislation and it has not replied to requests for comment.

A committee staffer working on the bill told The Register that the provisions of the bill were open to amendment and that talks are ongoing between civil liberties groups and the bill's sponsors that would clear up many of the issues. A series of amendments will be introduced next week, which should allay concerns over the scope of CISPA.

In particular, the staffer said that there is a provision within CISPA that explicitly bans the government from insisting on getting information on customers in exchange for security information, and any exchange would be absolutely voluntary. There is also no provision for the data to be used just for intellectual property theft, and the IP clauses in the bill had been included were intended to go after overseas players going after military or commercial data via network hacking, not file sharers.

"They're not looking for some kid in the Dallas suburbs hacking into his school to change his grade," the staffer said. "This is about foreign intelligence services and organized crime figures from overseas." ®

Exclusive: Threats range from governments trying to control citizens to the rise of Facebook and Apple-style 'walled gardens'

Sergey Brin says he and Google co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to create their search giant if the internet was dominated by Facebook. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The principles of openness and universal access that underpinned the creation of the internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

In an interview with the Guardian, Brin warned there were "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary."

The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of "restrictive" walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms.

The 38-year-old billionaire, whose family fled antisemitism in the Soviet Union, was widely regarded as having been the driving force behind Google's partial pullout from China in 2010 over concerns about censorship and cyber-attacks. He said five years ago he did not believe China or any country could effectively restrict the internet for long, but now says he has been proven wrong. "I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle," he said.

He said he was most concerned by the efforts of countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to censor and restrict use of the internet, but warned that the rise of Facebook and Apple, which have their own proprietary platforms and control access to their users, risked stifling innovation and balkanising the web."There's a lot to be lost," he said. "For example, all the information in apps – that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can't search it."

Brin's criticism of Facebook is likely to be controversial, with the social network approaching an estimated $100bn (£64bn) flotation. Google's upstart rival has seen explosive growth: it has signed up half of Americans with computer access and more than 800 million members worldwide.

Brin said he and co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to create Google if the internet was dominated by Facebook. "You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive," he said. "The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation."

He criticised Facebook for not making it easy for users to switch their data to other services. "Facebook has been sucking down Gmail contacts for many years," he said.

Brin's comments come on the first day of a week-long Guardian investigation of the intensifying battle for control of the internet being fought across the globe between governments, companies, military strategists, activists and hackers.

From the attempts made by Hollywood to push through legislation allowing pirate websites to be shut down, to the British government's plans to monitor social media and web use, the ethos of openness championed by the pioneers of the internet and worldwide web is being challenged on a number of fronts.

In China, which now has more internet users than any other country, the government recently introduced new "real identity" rules in a bid to tame the boisterous microblogging scene. In Russia, there are powerful calls to rein in a blogosphere blamed for fomenting a wave of anti-Vladimir Putin protests. It has been reported that Iran is planning to introduce a sealed "national internet" from this summer.

Ricken Patel, co-founder of Avaaz, the 14 million-strong online activist network which has been providing communication equipment and training to Syrian activists, echoed Brin's warning: "We've seen a massive attack on the freedom of the web. Governments are realising the power of this medium to organise people and they are trying to clamp down across the world, not just in places like China and North Korea; we're seeing bills in the United States, in Italy, all across the world."

Writing in the Guardian on Monday, outspoken Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei says the Chinese government's attempts to control the internet will ultimately be doomed to failure. "In the long run," he says, "they must understand it's not possible for them to control the internet unless they shut it off – and they can't live with the consequences of that."

Amid mounting concern over the militarisation of the internet and claims – denied by Beijing – that China has mounted numerous cyber-attacks on US military and corporate targets, he said it would be hugely difficult for any government to defend its online "territory".

"If you compare the internet to the physical world, there really aren't any walls between countries," he said. "If Canada wanted to send tanks into the US there is nothing stopping them and it's the same on the internet. It's hopeless to try to control the internet."

He reserved his harshest words for the entertainment industry, which he said was "shooting itself in the foot, or maybe worse than in the foot" by lobbying for legislation to block sites offering pirate material.

He said the Sopa and Pipa bills championed by the film and music industries would have led to the US using the same technology and approach it criticised China and Iran for using. The entertainment industry failed to appreciate people would continue to download pirated content as long as it was easier to acquire and use than legitimately obtained material, he said.

"I haven't tried it for many years but when you go on a pirate website, you choose what you like; it downloads to the device of your choice and it will just work – and then when you have to jump through all these hoops [to buy legitimate content], the walls created are disincentives for people to buy," he said.Brin acknowledged that some people were anxious about the amount of their data that was now in the reach of US authorities because it sits on Google's servers. He said the company was periodically forced to hand over data and sometimes prevented by legal restrictions from even notifying users that it had done so.

He said: "We push back a lot; we are able to turn down a lot of these requests. We do everything possible to protect the data. If we could wave a magic wand and not be subject to US law, that would be great. If we could be in some magical jurisdiction that everyone in the world trusted, that would be great … We're doing it as well as can be done."

Google is facing a $25,000 fine for refusing to cooperate with a Federal Communications Commission investigation into the tech giant's data-collection practices.

The world's largest search engine came under fire two years ago when it was revealed that its popular but controversial street-mapping program -- in which cars snap photos of homes, intersections and other neighborhood features -- was also picking up sensitive information from home wireless networks such as email and text messages, passwords and Internet usage history.

The FCC, which filed its 25-page report Friday, said despite Google admitting wrongdoing at the time, the company has since "deliberately impeded and delayed" the agency's probe into the matter, according to the New York Times.

Specifically, the FCC said Google was not responding to email requests for more information and was refusing to identify the employees involved.

Despite the relatively small fine, the FCC noted that the data collection was legal because the information was not encrypted, according to the New York Times.

The investigation raises a fresh round of questions over the right to privacy in an increasingly digital world. In a recent statewide poll, the vast majority of Californians said they were worried about the data collected by smartphone and Internet companies, and most said they distrust even firms that are known for having tens of millions of users, such as Facebook.

Calls and emails to Google were not returned Sunday morning.

Two years ago, a separate probe by the Federal Trade Commission into Google's Street View project led the agency to announce that it was satisfied with the tech firm's explanation into its data-collection practices and would not impose any fines.

A blogger and tweeter – Olly Cromwell – was found guilty on Friday, 13th April, simply for swearing at a Bexley, London, councillor in a Twitter message.

The prosecution alleged he called a senior Bexley councillor a ‘cunt’ and are seeking a custodial sentence of 45 days for each letter of the word.

Cromwell was found guilty of a Section 127 offence under the Communications Act 2003 and will be back at court on 9th May for sentencing. He says he will appeal against the ruling after the sentencing.

Even more worryingly, Cromwell was issued with a restraining order at his pre-trial hearing on the 21st December 2011 before being found guilty of any crime. He was charged with ‘grossly offensive malicious communications’ for sending two tweets on the day....read more

@blockthebillwas the Twitter account campaigning against the 2011 Health and Social Care Bill: that introduced by David Cameron's government and his health secretary Andrew Lansley to implement the permission of private healthcare corporations to takeover hospitals in Britain for the purposes of profiteering, and eventual erosion of the UK's universal healthcare system, already deprived by frontline cuts and overwhelmed by corporate bureaucracy, into a marketised insurance-based one. For some reason, Twitter deemed it justifiable and necessary to suspend this account directly themselves. We can give Twitter the benefit of the doubt and assume that they hold a rationale that views the account as futile, seeing as the political establishment have managed to force the act into law, even with immense opposition from healthcare practitioners and a contempt for any transparent accountability on its consequential harm. But to me at least, the administrative effort of Twitter in deleting an account just for promoting a specific political advocacy is something of an anomaly in its code of conduct. It may be a private company, but it is at least a profound mistake and contradiction on their part if conducting themselves as a public medium under the auspices of promoting open political debate and freedom of expression.

Nevertheless, the same campaigners opposed to the privatisation of the NHS are now standing to totally end its destruction by neoliberal forces as @AxeTheAct. I encourage all those concerned to follow them. For as long as their account exists, anyway. With the aim to give Twitter no supposed legitimacy to delete them.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

CAUL GRANT – gives his perspective on Britain to the Bournemouth Constitution Group conference at Stoke on Trent July '10

This is from the BCG 'Is this a Police State' series. Caul shares his horrendous experiences at the hands of the Justice system -following the death of his son while in the care of a hospital. He encountered false information and harassment, and more, leading to the question ' Is this a Police state Britain?' www.ukcolumn.orgwww.lawfulrebellion.org

City of London police questioned BT earlier this week as part of a probe into the covert wiretapping and profiling of the internet use of tens of thousands of BT customers during tests of Phorm's adware system.

City of London CID met BT representatives on Tuesday.

Officers have been examining the dossier of evidence handed to Wood Street police station by campaigners following the 16 July protest against BT's planned full deployment of Phorm's technology. It included the internal documents detailing the 2006 trial, which we reported here.

There's no indication as to whether formal proceedings will be brought. Considerations will include whether it falls within City of London police's remit to investigate crimes that affect the residents or workers of London's financial district, and whether charges would be proportionate and in the public interest.

BT ran a test in September 2006 that sought to target web advertising based on 18,000 of its broadband subscribers' behaviour. The internal report on the two week operation said that its specific aim was to track users without them noticing. A second, similar experiment in summer 2007 tracked tens of thousands more. Since details of BT's actions were revealed by El Reg, more than 17,000 have signed a Downing Street petition calling on authorities to investigate.

A spokeswoman for City of London Police said she was unable to provide any information on Tuesday's meeting because no decision has yet been taken on whether to formally investigate. It is thought senior officers will decide that within two weeks.

BT, which declined to comment today, has said it took legal advice that said running the trials without customer consent was legal. It has not detailed what the advice said, and data law experts have charged that it broke several criminal statutes.

Most notably, an analysis (pdf) by the Foundation for Information Policy Research's legal counsel Nicholas Bohm concluded that the trials had broken the Regulation of Iinvestigatory Powers Act (RIPA) as well as data protection and fraud laws. The Home office's own advice, obtained by BT after it had run the two secret trials, said deployments of Phorm's systems would only be legal under RIPA if consent was obtained from ISP subscribers.

The European Commission is pursuing its own investigation of Phorm's technology and BT's trials, parallel to UK police enquiries. The government this week said it will respond to a Brussels request for an explanation of its apparent failure to enforce privacy directives later this month. ®

Friday, April 6, 2012

As I reported in my last post, the European Parliament's INTA committee recommended that ACTA be voted on in the European Parliament. And the good news continues with the release of the draft report of the Industry, Research and Energy committee (ITRE), which is short but rather sweet [.pdf].

It makes four absolutely spot-on and withering comments on ACTA.First:

Notes that counterfeiting, copyright and trademark infringements are covered by ACTA thus creating a one-size-fits-all instrument of enforcement which doesn't meet the unique needs of each sector; is concerned by the lack of definition of key terminologies on which the ACTA enforcement mechanisms are based; fears that this creates legal uncertainty for European companies and in particular SMEs, technology users, online platform and internet service providers;

This is a point that I have made many times here on Computerworld UK. ACTA began as a treaty against conventional, analogue counterfeits, but had digital infringement shoe-horned into it. The result is an incompatible, inappropriate mess. If the European Union wants to tackle counterfeiting and digital infringement, it should do so with a separate treaties that are specifically designed to deal with each area and its particular characteristics. Trying to come up with a portmanteau treaty simply guarantees that we get the worst of both worlds....read more

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Spain’s Ministry of Culture has just reported on the first month’s activities following the introduction of the country’s ‘Sinde’ anti-piracy law. The controversial legislation, described by some as a Spanish version of SOPA, took effect March 1st and since that time rightsholders have been busy filing notices. Almost 300 complaints have been filed in total including 79 site takedown requests.

After beingthreatened with a place on a United States trade blacklist, the Spanish government passed the so-called Sinde Law, legislation that allows for the blocking of allegedly infringing sites based on reports from copyright holders.

On March 1st the Sinde law went into effect and now, a month on, the Spanish Ministry of Culture has revealed that in total almost 300 official complaints have been received.The Comisión de Propiedad Intelectual (Copyright Commission) has received 213 copyright complaints plus 79 closure requests from rightsholders against specific websites accused of online piracy.

The Commission will investigate all allegations and has the power to dismiss claims or set the ball rolling for further action, including the removal of links said to infringe copyright through to the court-ordered closure or ISP blockade of entire websites.Although the process between complaint and site shutdown can in theory be completed in about a month, the Ministry of Culture reports that no punitive action has yet been taken in respect of the 300 complaints.

It is not clear how many of the complaints being processed, if any, are the result of a hacktivist sabotage campaign launched on the day the Sinde law came into effect.The group Hackivistas encouraged sites to link to a copyrighted track from artist Eme Navarro, a member of the music rights group SGAE but also an outspoken critic of the Sinde law. Hundreds of websites reportedly linking to Navarro’s song without permission, with Navarro subsequently reporting them to the Ministry of Culture.

While the initial aim of the campaign was to overload the Commission, it was also designed to discover more about the uncertain takedown process. Current thinking suggests that Spanish hosting companies will be asked to shut down non-compliant websites and ISPs will be asked to block those hosted outside Spain.

In theory it’s possible to shut down sites within a month, which could mean that the first closures from the first batch reported by the Ministry of Culture will be seen in April.

Stop Government Snooping, scream emotive headlines all the way across civil liberty groups to mainstream media, but are they concentrating on the real story? Yes, I think so. As far as the government press office would have you think.

The alleged new laws under proposals would allow the monitoring of all emails, texts and web use in the UK is a text book example of how a government attempts to manoeuvre focus away from a controversial story by manufacturing an even greater one in its place.The more dramatic and emotive this slight of hand can be made to appear, the greater its desired effect.

The present uproar concerning privacy, tactically, ironically or perhaps even coincidentally announced on April 1st, is a deliberate ploy of misdirection designed to draw attention away from the genuine story. In this instance it is the break up of the NHS....read more

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

This morning the Home Secretary has come out and justified the Government’s plans to massively increase their surveillance. It seems that the justification is shifting from preventing incidents to helping convict people afterwards, as in the case of Ian Huntley.

“It emerged that Huntley had been known to the authorities over a period of years, coming into contact with the police and/or social services in relation to 11 separate incidents involving allegations of criminal offences, between1995 and 1999. Nine of these were sexual offences. This was not discovered in the vetting check carried out by Cambridgeshire Constabulary when he was appointed caretaker of Soham Village College late in 2001.”

So, the amount of data available to the authorities was not the issue – it was how they used it. This is not an isolated example.

Turning to the 7/7 Inquiry, the Coroner’s report discusses the issues involved with large amounts of data and surveillance:

“However, one must never lose sight of the fact that the material confronting the Security Service at the time would have comprised literally thousands of strands of intelligence of varying degrees of quality, in relation to thousands of possible contacts and hundreds of possible targets. The desk officers must usually work at speed and in very difficult conditions. We do not know the precise details, but we know enough properly to infer that the sheer scale and number of the threats facing the UK was immense. If one plot is discovered to involve an imminent threat to life resources must be diverted to meet it at the expense of other investigations.”

“Post 7/7 enquiries revealed that between 22nd February and 15th June 2005 there were forty one telephone contacts between mobile phones attributed to Tanweer, Khan, and Lindsay and hydroponics outlets. It is unlikely these could have been detected by surveillance given the large number of untraceable “operational” phones used by the bombers and only attributed to them once their identities and details were known. It is unlikely these could have been detected by surveillance given the large number of untraceable “operational” phones used by the bombers and only attributed to them once their identities and details were known.”

“There was some evidence on the question of the quality of the software supplied to the Security Service. G gave evidence that “it can be very difficult” to “dig into” the files and computer systems at the Security Service to try to find out if a particular person has previously come to their attention. Witness G was pressed on the ease with which the Security Service could, today, retrieve all references to someone with the surname Khan.

He explained the difficulties given the large number of people bearing the name Khan.

Inputting even the name Siddique Khan, for example, may not produce helpful results.”

Scaremongering about terrorists and paedophiles is not only a cheap and petty way of forcing policy through, but if we fail to learn the lessons of history public safety will be worse off.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Swedish MINDTECH seeks to establish a network of laymen and media and will try to deal with the social and ethical sides to research, development and the implementation of emerging technologies in our society. Why? Well MIND CONTROL Technologies and experiments being done on humans now, and the ones carrying it out, don`t even bother to hide what they’re doing any more!
The most interesting part are the Direct Human Brain –artificial intelligence– Interface System technologies. MINDTECH will do extensive and thorough research into this totally new area, which at this point, is being investigated only by the few.
Information and communication society is on its way directly into our brains and the ethical debate is non-existent in Sweden and must be urgently addressed in media. The company (MINDTECH) that works for this and have come into contact with people who are victims of these experiments. These victims have shared stories and is living in the same geographical catchment area, and the stories are so horrible when as laboratory animals and to test the new technology in the most macabre and in a perverted way. Only within a small sphere of military / medical classified research and industrial projects are factual knowledge available.

It has once been of scientific research has focused on the new technologist is developed into a commercial orgy of human torture and humiliation, injury to a third-party carried out by researchers and their speaking computers with artificial intelligence.

How long shall attempt to sacrifice their families and work have to fight for their human rights in the frenzy of abuse that is now under way on software developed for mapping the brain in form of an implantable chip.

This development is a threat to democracy and the human free will, and much more. We can no longer deny that the development goes against the “Mind control” Systems.

UN mighty Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a platform. Here are committing Sweden in research and development of crimes against our fundamental rights as citizens. But even less is known are the discussed issues, concerning the electromagnetic system controlled by artificial intelligence in interaction with the human brain. Brain-Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence technologies for research and / or implementation of which represent entirely new aspects of the problem in the issue of radiation protection, health, safety, privacy, confidentiality and informed consent.
Brain-Computer Interaction in electronic form, working alternately with the influence of a person or a group of people’s opinions, feelings, thoughts, reaction patterns, and memory and behavior. Research and technological development is done in / moved to countries where legislation, control and public scrutiny is minimal or non-existent....read more

In Geneva today, Dr Pauline Nolan, Policy Officer for Inclusion Scotland, will submit evidence to a preliminary hearing ahead of a planned review of the human rights record of 14 states, including the UK.

On behalf of the Campaign for A Fair Society – a coalition of more than 70 Scottish charities – Dr Nolan will warn the cumulative impact of welfare reform and cuts to benefits affecting disabled people will mean their ability to live a full life is impaired. In particular, she will argue that welfare changes undermine their right to be included in the community.

The campaign also claims disabled people are being denied access to justice when they try to appeal against these cuts to their benefits.

Dr Nolan said she aimed to equip the UN with a series of recommendations and questions to put to the UK Government when its representatives appear in front of the Human Rights Council in May.

She added: “Disability organisations, disabled people and the Parliament’s own Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that these cuts will have a devastating cumulative impact on the livelihoods of disabled people.

“Further cuts are taking place to local authority services they receive. Taken together, all these cuts are severely undermining the human rights of disabled people.”..read more

Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade.

Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks.

The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013.

Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy...read more

In an unprecedented step that will see Britain adopt the same kind of surveillance as China and Iran, police and intelligence officers are to be handed powers to monitor people’s messages online. The plans have been described as an “attack on the privacy” of a vast number of Britons by the Independent and have attracted little support from backbench MP’s.

The Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced the governments intention to introduce legislation in next month’s Queen’s Speech which would allow law-enforcement agencies to check on social media, online gaming forums, calls, emails, texts and website traffic. The plans would give officials the right to know “who speaks to whom on demand and in real time”. The Home Office has said that the new law would keep crime-fighting abreast of communications developments and that a warrant would still be required to view the content of messages.

The Government has offered no justification for what is unprecedented intrusion into our lives, nor explained why promises made about civil liberties are being casually junked. The silence from Home Office ministers has been deafening. It is remarkable that they wish to pry into everything we do online but seem intent on avoiding any public discussion.These plans are an unprecedented attack on privacy online and it is far from clear this will actually improve public safety, while adding significant costs to internet business. No amount of scare-mongering can hide the fact that this policy is being condemned by MPs in all political parties.

Plans to massively expand powers to snoop on email and other online communications have provoked a storm of protest from civil liberties campaigners.

Under the move, internet companies would be instructed to install hardware that would allow spycentre GCHQ to examine "on demand" communications judged by the Home Office to be suspect.

GCHQ would need a warrant to access the content of communications but would be able to trace who people are in touch with and how often and how long they are in contact.Ministers believe it is an essential step to help police and security services combat terrorism and protect the public. Legislation on the issue is expected to be in the Queen's Speech.

The Home Office said: "It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public.

"We need to take action to maintain the continued availability of communications data as technology changes. We will legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows to ensure that the use of communications data is compatible with the Government's approach to civil liberties."

This is an unnecessary extension of the ability of the state to snoop on ordinary innocent people in vast numbers. Frankly, [the government] shouldn't have that power.

David Davis MP, former Tory leadership challenger

A similar scheme floated by the then Labour government six years ago was dubbed "the Big Brother bill", and abandoned in the face of fierce Tory and Lib Dem opposition.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "There is an element of whoever you vote for the empire strikes back.

"This is more ambitious than anything that has been done before. It is a pretty drastic step in a democracy."

Nick Pickles, director of the Big Brother Watch campaign group, added: "This is an unprecedented step that will see Britain adopt the same kind of surveillance seen in China and Iran."

The bill will also face some resistance from some Conservative MPs.

Former party leadership campaigner David Davis said: "This is an unnecessary extension of the ability of the state to snoop on ordinary innocent people in vast numbers. Frankly, they shouldn't have that power."

And backbench Tory MP Margot James predicted that the law would not get an easy passage through parliament.

"I am sure there will be considerable pressure brought to bear as the proposals are debated for protections to be built in to protect people's privacy," she told Sky News.

There are also concerns among internet providers, who will have to install thousands of pieces of hardware to make the state-sponsored eavesdropping possible.

However, in a sense the concept itself is nothing new.

In 1655, the Post Office was put under the direct control of John Thurloe - a man best known to history as Oliver Cromwell's spymaster general.

Previous English governments had tried to prevent conspirators communicating but the technique Thurloe adopted was to deliver the post, after having secretly read it first.

A previous attempt to introduce a similar law was abandoned by the former Labour government in 2006 in the face of fierce opposition.

However ministers believe it is essential that the police and security services have access to such communications data in order to tackle terrorism and protect the public.

Although GCHQ would not be able to access the content of such communications without a warrant, the legislation would enable it to trace people individuals or groups are in contact with, and how often and for how long they are in communication.

The Home Office confirmed that ministers were intending to legislate “as soon as parliamentary time allows”.

“It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public. We need to take action to maintain the continued availability of communications data as technology changes,” a spokesman said.

“Communications data includes time, duration and dialling numbers of a phone call, or an email address. It does not include the content of any phone call or email and it is not the intention of Government to make changes to the existing legal basis for the interception of communications.”

Nick Pickles, director of the Big Brother Watch campaign group, said: “This is an unprecedented step that will see Britain adopt the same kind of surveillance seen in China and Iran.

“This is an absolute attack on privacy online and it is far from clear this will actually improve public safety, while adding significant costs to internet businesses.

“If this was such a serious security issue why has the Home Office not ensured these powers were in place before the Olympics?”